What is XML sitemap?
The XML Sitemap is a structured format that a user doesn't need to see, but it tells search engines about the pages in your site.
WordPress XML sitemap also tells search engines which links on your website are more important than others and how frequently you update your website.
How to Add a Sitemap to Your WordPress Site
There are many plugins to add a sitemap that you can find, but we will introduce Google XML Sitemap of WordPress. This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog.
Step 1: Log in to the admin panel of your WordPress website
Step 2: Click on Plugins and then select Add New
Step 3: On the Install Plugins screen, under the Search tab, enter Google XML Sitemaps into the Search field, and click Search Plugins.
Step 4: On the Search Results page, look for Google XML Sitemaps and then click Install Now just below it.
Step 5: Click OK on the message box
Step 6: After the plugin has been successfully installed, make sure that you click on Activate Plugin
Step 7: Now under "Google XML Sitemaps" page you'll see an option called "Settings" click on that and then XML-Sitemap
Step 8: At the top of the new page you should see this message: "The sitemap wasn't built yet. Click here to build it the first time." and click on the Click here link.
Let’s submit the Sitemap to Search Engines
Your sitemap will be located at: http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. This is the address you can use to submit to search engines:
• Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
• Yahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
• Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster
In our previous blog posts we explained why do you need to add a sitemap and how to add a sitemap to the Drupal and Joomla site. You can refer these blog posts to get an overall idea of the subject.
We have some information about XML Sitemap, we hope that this guide was helpful. If you notice that there is something missing, please feel free to let us know. All your comments and questions are always welcome.
